Crime

Kalskag went into lockdown Tuesday morning. Schools and stores in both Upper and Lower Kalskag shut their doors, and people were told to stay inside. This followed a domestic violence incident in Upper Kalskag.

Ray Steeves, a 35-year old man from Upper Kalskag, assaulted someone in his home. Alaska State Troopers were called, but Steeves fled before they could get there. That was when the lockdown began.

Bethel Police are looking for two people that were indicted in last month’s beating of the manager of the Long House Hotel. 

It was April 18, about 2:15 a.m. on the night before Easter, when Don Black, the hotel manager, was awakened to help deal with a noise complaint. In his pajamas, he and Wesley Alexie, another employee at the hotel, approached a second-floor room to find out what was going on. Black says that when he said he was the manager and tried to enter the room, things escalated quickly. He sent Alexie to call the police.

An alcohol-fueled sexual assault in Newtok has landed a man in the Bethel jail. Troopers were called Friday about the assault. They arrived Monday. Their investigation revealed that Jonathan Usugan, age 41, allegedly broke into a home Friday morning and sexually assaulted a woman. Usugan is already on the state’s sex offender registry. He is now in the Yukon Kuskokwim Correctional Center facing two charges for sexual assault and one for entering the house illegally. Troopers report that alcohol was “a factor in the incident.”

On Thursday, May 9, Cornelius Benedict Jr. was arrested and jailed in Bethel on an outstanding warrant issued by the Fairbanks Superior Court. 

The Alaska State Troopers Statewide Drug Enforcement Unit personnel in Bethel were notified that a $100,000 arrest warrant had been issued by the Fairbanks Superior Court for the 47-year-old resident of Emmonak.

On Monday, a Bethel District Court judge sentenced the co-owner of a Bethel cab company to 10 days in jail and another year on probation for selling alcohol illegally three years ago. Min Sook Cha was driving a cab for Quyana Cab, a company she owned with Sungwoong Jeong, when she sold alcohol to an undercover officer. This took place in March 2016 when any alcohol sales in Bethel were illegal.